ANNIE

16 ☼ A House Divided

A N N E T T E

Despite Ms. Kenslee's hopeful reassurances, the next day wasn't any better. By Friday, I had already mastered avoiding the teachers who were tasked with keeping close tabs on me, and knowing that I would be stuck with the woman for the weekend made it even worse. Thinking of Tux was the only thing keeping me from completely losing it by the time the final bell rang.

Once I had dragged myself out the back door of the school and flopped down in the back of the car, Mr. Bradley was already looking at me with the same concern he'd carried with him all week.  "Are you sure everything's alright, Annie? I can go talk to somebody-"

"-No!" I tiredly cutted in. "It's fine. I'm just tired and want to go home."

Mr. Bradley sighed and started to pull out of the parking lot.  "You want to get a snack on the way there?" he asked with a smile.

"Yes, please!" I replied with a bit more enthusiasm.  With the school no longer in sight, I was starting to get excited.  "Can we get cheeseburgers?"

Mr. Bradley laughed at the request but agreed all the same and was soon pulling into the fast food restaurant on the corner.  "There you go, kid," he said as he handed back the bag of food and the large drink that had been requested. 

By the time I had finished eating the whole meal I had been offered, I was leaning my head heavily on the window.  I'd hoped to fall asleep and make the ride feel a bit shorter but I couldn't seem to keep my eyes closed long enough. Soon we were close enough for me to make out the turnoff that led to the mansion, which was good because I was ready to get out of the car.

Someone must have told Ms. Kenslee that we were almost there because she was waiting out front, and I couldn't have been any less anxious to see her.  With everything that happened the other day, I've been mostly avoiding her, even the morning was spent entirely by granny's side until she had to leave.

The second the car came to a stop, I clutched a hold of my bag's straps and slowly made my way towards the woman who was standing there with open arms.  "Hey, hun! I missed you so much," Ms. Kenslee said as she hugged me tightly.

Pulling away from the woman's grasp, I looked towards the door.  "Where's Tux?"

"Out on a walk with Quintin," she answered with a smile, relinquishing her hold as she led me inside.

Once we entered the foyer, Ms. Kenslee wrapped an arm around my shoulders as we walked towards the staircase. "What do you want to do tonight?" she asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

"I haven't really thought about it," I replied. My thoughts had all been occupied by yesterday's news for the last 24-hours. The only thing I had really thought about weekend-wise was that I couldn't wait to be back home, in my room.

Nodding her head in understanding, Ms. Kenslee walked into the study with me close behind. "You have homework?"

I nodded as I sat my bookbag down on the chair. "I only have to read. Nothing special or anything, just read for like twenty minutes a day."

Placing a soft touch on the top of my head as she walked past, Ms. Kenslee picked up a packet of papers off of the tabletop. "Go get your book. I need to go through all of this anyway."

So that was how we spent the next thirty minutes or so. With me laying across the couch with my nose in a book while Ms. Kenslee sat at the desk. I could hear the rustling of papers and the scratching of the woman's pen, and it didn't take too long for my curiosity to take over.  "What are all of those papers for?" I asked as I peeked over the back of the couch.

Ms. Kenslee glanced up from where she had her head resting on one of her hands.  "Huh? Oh, it's for the lawyer. This is all of the stuff that I have to fill out for the home visit. There's also a list of recommendations on what sort of answers I should give during the interview," she said with a smile and a roll of her eyes.  "Apparently they think I need to be coached on how to behave with the social worker."

"Can I see it?" I asked as I got up from the couch and walked around to stand in front of her desk. It didn't occur  to me that the information in that packet might've been a bit too personal for me to have been asking to read it until the words were already out of my mouth.

Hesitating slightly, Ms. Kenslee sighed and patted the chair beside her. "These first couple of pages are just me giving permission for them to go through my tax information and for a background check. Nothing super interesting there," she said before flipping through to the more personalized portion of the packet. "These are some of the questions the lawyer thinks that they might ask me. There are a few about my past, like this one here," she said, pointing to the second point on the list.  "It's not exactly a secret that I graduated from a four-years private university and took on my father's business shortly after his death," the woman sighed. "Nothing interesting..."

I wanted to interject that it actually sounded very interesting, especially since she really didn't talk much about that period of her life, but I didn't. "Is there a list for me? They're going to talk to me too, right?"

"Yeah, but you don't have anything to worry about.  Just tell the truth and be yourself," Ms. Kenslee explained causally. "You don't have a troubled past that they're going to be very keen on discussing."

Having never thought about it that way, I frowned. "I'm sorry," I said in sympathy.  All of a sudden I felt somewhat guilty for being the reason that the woman was going to have to go through all of that. Now aware that she didn't really like talking about her history of past regrets and mistakes. 

"It's alright, Ann," Ms. Kenslee said, already being able to guess where my thoughts were heading. "This isn't going to be broadcast anywhere or anything. This is important."

Glancing through the page that I could see, I frowned.  "Why do they want a DNA test?" 

Reaching beside her to grab my rapidly bouncing knee, Ms. Kenslee sighed.  "They want the DNA test to prove that you are indeed mine. Though, I'm not completely sure," she explained calmly.

"Are they going to take blood?" I asked squeamishly enough to make her laugh.  "What? I don't like it. You have to sit still and-"

"-and you can't sit still for anything. I know..." she cut in with a sweet laugh.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I glared at the woman.  "No. I was going to say you have to sit still and let somebody stab you with a needle." I thought twice as I tried to explain why I didn't want to have my blood drawn. "I just don't like it."

"It's fine, love. They won't need your blood. Just a little bit of saliva. I've already sent mine. We'll get your's tomorrow," Ms. Kenslee said as she started to place all of the papers back into their manila folder.